Image source: Google

Google launched the 53-qubit Sycamore processor in 2019, and this experiment has further upgraded the Sycamore processor, which has been upgraded to 70 quantum bits.

Google said that after upgrading the Sycamore processor, its performance was 241 million times higher than the previous version, although it was affected by other factors such as coherence time.

In the experiment, the scientists performed a random circuit sampling task. In quantum computing, this involves testing the performance of a quantum computer by running random circuits and analyzing the resulting output to assess its capabilities and efficiency in solving complex problems.

Google says that what the industry’s most advanced supercomputer, Frontier, takes 47.2 years to compute, the 53-qubit Sycamore processor can do in just 6.18 seconds, and the new version of the 70-qubit Sycamore processor is even faster.

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In a new blog post, Microsoft has outlined a roadmap for creating a quantum computer. Microsoft says they have achieved the first of these milestones, the creation and control of quasiparticles called Majoranas. Microsoft says this is the first step in making hardware-protected quantum bits (qubits), the building blocks of quantum computers.

Microsoft said: “With this achievement, we are closer to making a new hardware-protected qubit. With it, we can make reliable logical qubits up to Resilient Level and then Scale further.”

Creating a quantum computer that can produce accurate results is tricky because qubits are sensitive to tiny influences from the outside world. Microsoft said they came up with a new metric called reliable quantum operations per second (rQOPS). Microsoft said: “It considers the performance of the entire system, not just the performance of qubits, so it can guarantee that the algorithm will run correctly. Our industry has not yet transitioned from the NISQ era, so today’s quantum computers are at the first level, rQOPS Zero. The first quantum supercomputer will need at least 1 million rQOPS and will scale to more than 1 billion to solve impactful chemistry and materials science problems.”

In a chat with TechCrunch, Microsoft’s vice president of advanced quantum development Krysta Svore said that within 10 years, the last part of the company’s quantum computing roadmap, which is to create a quantum supercomputer, will be reached.

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Quantum particles are much smaller than the classical particles we normally see, so much so that they are incredibly small. Because of this, almost (in the words of Philip Ball) “everything is different on the quantum scale” (i.e., not just strange). This means that using words like “object” and “particle” in the context of classical physics is problematic. Even the word “wave” in quantum mechanics is often misleading. This is mainly because quantum wave functions are merely mathematical objects represented by equations — strictly speaking, they do not correspond exactly to descriptions of reality.

More specifically, if particles were waves, then wave interference would be less strange, and wave superposition less strange. (That is, it is also problematic to consider quantum x as a wave – as just described.)

Technically speaking, quantum x (i.e., something that has not yet been named, and for lack of a suitable word, is represented by a letter) and quantum y interfere with each other — just like waves on the ocean. Thus, when quantum x and quantum y interfere, they are superimposed on each other. Of course, a classical object cannot interfere with another classical object — at least not in the same way as a quantum object interferes with each other. Nor can classical x and classical y be in superposition.

However, we are not talking about a classical object here, not even a classical particle!

Therefore, why does quantum x not behave like a classical object, or even like a classical particle? Conversely, if a classical object behaved like a quantum x, it would also look strange. But this does not happen. Many people think quantum phenomena are strange mainly because they treat them as classical phenomena, but they behave very non-classically. In fact, we only have quantum phenomena that behave in a quantum way — just as classical phenomena behave in a classical way.

When Michael Brooks uses the term “a single positive nuclear charge, or proton,” he again shows us the problem with the word “particle. Here we can certainly arrive at a definition, which is.

"Proton = (single) positive nuclear charge
                                                                                   "                

Thus, in this case, the particle is simply a positive charge. Now, positive (or negative) charges are hardly particle-like — at least when they exist in isolation, because they always exhibit wave characteristics. Even if a proton (or another particle) contains other properties besides charge (e.g. spin, mass, size, etc.), the word “particle” still doesn’t seem appropriate …… but it is useful!

If we go back to the description of quantum objects as waves, one way to show the implausibility of this description (among many others) is to clarify the de Broglie wavelength of a fullerene molecule (composed of 60 carbon atoms). A fullerene is a huge quantum “object” measuring about a meter, or a trillionth of a meter! How exactly does this relate to waves on the ocean or any other type of classical (or macroscopic) wave?

The following discussion is as close as possible to classical particles in quantum mechanics.

When a wave becomes a particle

As already mentioned, when two quantum waves meet, they superimpose. This superposition is the sum of two waves at any given position. Moreover, this “sum” can behave more like a particle than the two waves alone. (This is in general agreement with Max Born’s position in the 1920s/30s – see “Born’s Law” for details). This particle-like thing is the result of the superposition of two or more quantum waves. In other words, if you put a wave trough with another wave trough (or a wave peak with another wave peak), then you get something like a particle or a solid. In other words, when waves are squeezed, fused or mixed together, it becomes more like a hard entity ……

Of course, all these words and descriptions are similar in nature!

In other words, we are still using “wave” and “particle” here (as well as “trough” and “crest”, not to mention “squeeze”). Not to mention the words “squeeze”, “fusion” and “mix”). This is mainly because I had no choice but to do so.

In fact, all these words belong to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. This means that simply using the monotonic variables x, y, etc. is not very helpful when interpreting quantum mechanics. Of course, this is not helpful to any interested layman.

The body of a smoke gargoyle

Although the article opens with a quote from Michael Brooks, he also writes elsewhere in the same book:

"According to Bohr, the ultimate entity behind Schrödinger's fluctuation equation is neither a wave nor a particle, and therefore it cannot be described in any terms we can deal with."

Of course, the fact that Brooks merely quotes Niels Bohr does not mean that he agrees with Bohr. Nevertheless, Bohr does raise a question that needs to be addressed — even if one does not need to accept his overall position or interpretation. (Many people do disagree with Bohr — especially physicists such as Albert Einstein and later David Bohm.)

John Wheeler (John Archibald Wheeler, 1911-2008)

The American theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler has also studied these problems, or at least similar ones. He used the image of a “smoke dragon” to make his point. He pointed out that between experimental input and experimental output (or observation), “we have no right to talk about what exists”. Thus, words like “particle” and “wave” are naturally suspect — at least when used in the context of experimental processes (i.e., the hypothetical “reality” of the dragon’s body). “realness”) is the case.

Thus, there is a difference between describing quantum x as a “particle” or “wave” before the output (i.e., as it exists and occurs before the actual experiment or observation) and describing quantum x in this way after the experimental or observational output. However, even when experiments (or observations) have been performed, i.e. when the quantum wave function has “collapsed”, the use of these classical terms may still be problematic.

Again, Bohr is quoted. According to Brooks, Bohr believed that

"Once a measurement is made, the type of measurement will determine what we can see."

more importantly,

"For example, if you use an instrument to detect the position of an object in space, you will see objects that have a definite position in space—that is, entities we call particles."

The point here is that the use of the word “particle” to refer to something on the dragon’s body, and to refer to something after the “spatial location of the object detected by the instrument”, is suspicious. So this (ontological?) x is not only not a particle before measurement or observation, but also not a particle after measurement (or observation).

In conclusion: the classical term “particle” is problematic in all quantum cases.

Note.

If it is problematic to consider quantum particles as particles (or objects), then it is also problematic to consider atoms as particles.

Perhaps an atom cannot be considered as an “object” at all. After all, if the nucleus of a helium atom is considered to be the size of a lemon, then the edge of the atom (defined by the outer orbit of its electron) would be 2.5 miles in diameter. Thus, proportionally speaking, the nucleus is extremely out of proportion to the entire atom. Each electron in the atom is even smaller than the atom to which it belongs, which is incredibly small. (It is the equivalent of a dot on a circle of 2.5 miles in diameter. Even smaller! There is no accurate statement about the size of the electron.)

Of course, most if not all (classical) entities are also made up of individual atoms of elements, so this is not a problem in itself.

Link to the original article: Quantum Particles are Neither Classical Particles Nor Weird Objects

The translated content represents the author’s opinion only and does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The post Why Quantum Mechanics Always Confused appeared first on TechGoing.

Recently, IPRdaily Chinese published the list of global quantum computing technology invention patents (TOP100), which ranks the number of invention patent applications in the field of quantum computing that are publicly available worldwide as of October 18, 2022.

The quantum computing technology fields in this list are restricted to quantum computing processing systems and methods, quantum line operation methods and devices, quantum state layering methods and devices, quantum program transformation methods and devices, quantum logic gate operation optimization methods, superconducting quantum processors and quantum measurement and control; quantum key encryption, quantum computing resistant cryptography and other technology fields are not included.

The top 100 companies on the list are mainly from 18 countries and regions, with the US accounting for 40%, China for 15% and Japan for 11%.

Among them, IBM, a technology company from the United States, ranked first with 1,323 patents, while Google, a US technology company, and D-Wave, a Canadian quantum computing company, ranked second and third with 762 and 501 patents respectively.

As for Chinese companies, they mainly include Hongyuan Quantum, Baidu.com, Wave, Tencent Technology, Huawei, Alibaba, Turing Quantum, Qico Quantum, Quantum Spin Technology, State Grid, Guoyi Quantum, Alibaba Dharma Institute, Sichuan Yuanmu Technology, Jianyin International and Yongda Electronics.

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At the 2022 Silicon Quantum Electronics Symposium in Orford, Quebec, Intel researchers said that Intel’s Transistor R&D Center has been able to demonstrate the highest levels of yield and uniformity when manufacturing “silicon spin quantum bit devices,” which is considered an important milestone for Intel as it moves toward being able to manufacture quantum computing chips on existing transistor manufacturing processes.

Intel is one of the key players in the race to build quantum computers. A quantum computer is a more advanced machine that can encode data as “quantum bits” instead of the bits used in traditional computers. The advantage of a quantum bit is that it is not limited to the state 1 or 0, but can exist as two states at the same time, a property known as superposition.

This is mainly due to the singularity of quantum physics. Intel compares a quantum bit to a coin, which can be heads, tails, or a constantly rotating state. When the coin is spinning, it can be considered both heads and tails at the same time.

Intel further explains that if a spinning coin can represent two states at once, then two spinning coins can represent four states: HH, TT, HT, and TH. Thus, the possibilities expand rapidly, and three spinning coins can represent eight states.

It is important that you understand that the ability of quantum bits to represent multiple states makes them more powerful than traditional bits, so the more quantum bits in a quantum computer, the more capable the machine becomes.

Surprisingly, although quantum bits look amazing, they are actually manufactured in the same way as traditional computer chips, as “spin quantum bits” on silicon wafers, with the major difference being that they are a bit more fragile and can only exist in very low temperatures to maintain their stability.

So far, most research processes have focused on creating one quantum chip at a time, while Intel’s approach is different, using existing extreme ultraviolet lithography to create a typical 300 mm wafer, which contains multiple quantum chips. According to Intel, this prototype demonstrates the strongest consistency to date, with a yield of about 95 percent.

Figure: Image of an Intel cryogenic detector ingested during automation, showing a 1.6 Kelvin quantum bit device in which quantum dots can be formed at all 16 positions (4 sensors and 12 quantum bit positions) and tuned to the last individual electron without input manipulation by an engineer. These results are achieved with the uniformity and repeatability of the Intel-built device, and they are collected on an entire wafer. The system runs continuously to generate the largest dataset of quantum dot devices known to date.

James Clarke, Intel’s director of quantum hardware, said the research shows that the idea of using Intel’s existing transistor process nodes to make quantum chips is a “sound strategy” that will see results as the technology matures.

Because Intel has achieved higher yields and consistency compared to earlier chips, Intel can now use statistical process control techniques to determine which areas of the manufacturing process can be optimized. In this way, Intel can accelerate its research efforts and expects to mass produce thousands or even millions of quantum bits for commercial quantum computers within a day.

Clarke said, “Going forward, we will continue to improve the quality of these devices and develop larger scale systems that use these steps as building blocks to help us move forward quickly.”

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The total investment in the program is said to be more than 100 million euros, half of which will come from the EU and the other half from the 17 countries involved in the project. The new quantum computer network will meet the growing demand for quantum computing resources from European industry and academia, and play an important role in combating climate change and developing clean energy, superconductivity research, and developing new drugs.

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According to scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in the US, the device could replace a roomful of devices that link photons in a bizarre quantum effect known as entanglement. It is a nano-engineered material known as a metasurface that paves the way for entangling photons in a complex way that would not be possible in compact technology.

When photons are said to be entangled, this means that they are linked in such a way that action on one photon affects another, no matter where in the universe those photons are or how far apart they are. This is a bizarre effect of quantum mechanics, a law of physics that governs particles and other very tiny things.

As strange as this phenomenon may seem, researchers have used it to process information in new ways. For example, entanglement helps protect fragile quantum information and correct errors in quantum computing, an area that could one day have sweeping implications for science, finance and national security. Entanglement can also provide advanced new encryption methods for secure communications.

The groundbreaking device is only one hundredth the thickness of a sheet of paper, and its research was conducted in part at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology, a user facility of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, operated by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sandia’s team received funding from the Office of Science’s Basic Energy Sciences Program.

The new metasurface acts as a ‘portal’ for this unusual quantum phenomenon. In some ways it resembles the mirror in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in the Mirror, through which the young protagonist Alice experiences a strange new world.

Instead of walking through their new device, the scientists shine a laser through it. The beam passes through an ultra-thin glass sample covered with a nanoscale structure made of a common semiconductor material called gallium arsenide.

“It disturbs all the light fields,” says Sandia senior scientist Igal Brener. He is an expert in a field called nonlinear optics and leads the Sandia team. Occasionally, he said, a pair of entangled photons of different wavelengths would emerge from the sample in the same direction as the incoming laser beam.

Brener said he was enthusiastic about the device because it was designed to produce a complex network of entangled photons. Instead of producing one pair at a time, it can produce several pairs of photons that are all entangled, and some that can be indistinguishable from each other. Some technologies require these complex so-called multiple entangled varieties to implement complex information processing schemes.

Although other micro technologies based on silicon photonics can also entangle photons, they lack the much-needed level of complex multiple entanglements. Until now, the only way to produce such results has been to use multiple tables filled with lasers, specialized crystals and other optical devices.

When this multiple entanglement requires more than two or three pairs, it is quite complex and somewhat difficult to solve,” Brener said. These nonlinear metasurfaces essentially achieve this task in a single sample, which previously required incredibly complex optical setups.”

The Science paper outlines how the team successfully tuned their metasurfaces to produce entangled photons with different wavelengths. This is a key precursor to producing several pairs of intricately entangled photons at the same time.

However, the scientists note in their paper that the efficiency of their device – the speed at which they were able to produce groups of entangled photons – is lower than other techniques and will need to be improved.

What is a metasurface?

A metasurface is a synthetic material that interacts with light and other electromagnetic waves in ways that conventional materials can’t. Brener says the commercial industry is busy developing metasurfaces because they take up less space and can do more with light than conventional lenses.

“You can now replace lenses and thick optical elements with metasurfaces,” Brener said. “These types of metasurfaces are going to revolutionize consumer products.”

Sandia National Laboratories is one of the world’s leading institutions conducting research on metasurfaces and metamaterials. Between its Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications Complex, where compound semiconductors are made, and the nearby Integrated Nanotechnology Centre, scientists have access to all the specialized tools they need to design, fabricate and analyze these ambitious new materials.

This work is challenging because it requires precise nanofabrication techniques to obtain the sharp, narrow-band optical resonances that are the seeds of the quantum processes in this work,” says Sylvain Gennaro, a former postdoctoral researcher at Sandia, who was involved in several aspects of the project.

The device was designed, fabricated and tested through a collaboration between Sandia and a research team led by physicist Maria Chekhova. She is an expert in photonic quantum entanglement at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light.

Tomás Santiago-Cruz says: “Metasurfaces are leading to a paradigm shift in quantum optics, combining ultra-small quantum light sources with the far-reaching possibilities of quantum state engineering.” He is a member of Max Planck’s team and the first author of the paper.

Brener, who has been studying metamaterials for more than a decade, said this latest research could spark a second revolution – seeing these materials used not only as a new lens but as a technology for quantum information processing and other new applications. There is a wave of metasurface technology that is well established and underway,” he said. There may be a second wave of innovative applications coming up.”

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The current technique can turn off the coupling of superconducting quantum bits with close frequencies, but this is prone to crosstalk and the formation of errors when one of the quantum bits is irradiated by electromagnetic waves for control. In addition, current technology cannot completely turn off the coupling of quantum bits with significantly different frequencies, which in turn leads to errors due to residual coupling.

Toshiba has recently designed a dual-sensing coupler that can completely turn on and off the coupling between quantum bits with significantly different frequencies. Turning it fully on enables high-speed quantum computation with strong coupling while turning it fully off eliminates residual coupling, thereby improving the speed and accuracy of quantum computation.

Simulations performed with the new technology show that Toshiba has achieved double quantum gates, the fundamental operation in quantum computing, with 99.99% accuracy and a processing time of only 24 nanoseconds.

Toshiba’s dual quantum coupler can be applied to fixed-frequency quantum bits, achieving high stability and ease of design, and enabling the first coupling between fixed-frequency cross-gate bits with significantly different frequencies that can be fully turned on and off, and providing a high-speed, accurate dual-bit gate.

This technology is expected to drive the realization of higher-performance quantum computers that can contribute to areas such as achieving carbon neutrality and developing new drugs.

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Fujitsu began its collaboration with RIKEN in April last year, with about 20 researchers involved in the project, and the company expects the product to be launched in fiscal 2023 (counting from April this year) and will first be used in the company’s internal financial forecasting as well as in new materials and drug development, the report said.

Fujitsu is already conducting joint research on material design with photoresist maker Fujifilm to explore quantum computing applications, and plans to import further partners.

The report reveals that Fujitsu quantum computers will use the more mature low-temperature superconducting circuit technology route, which has been successfully implemented in Google and IBM products.

For quantum computing scale commercialization, Google to 2029 as a mileage node, drug and materials research and development as an important application scenario, Boston Consulting Group estimates that by 2040, quantum computing can create $ 850 billion in economic benefits in the above application areas each year.

The Nikkei analysis says that Japanese companies that can leverage their strengths in technologies such as superconductivity will have a chance to gain a foothold in the quantum computer competition.

The report also shows that Fujitsu’s prototype under development will be able to operate 64 quantum bits, and the company hopes to produce devices with 1,000 quantum bits by 2027.

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IQM believes its technology could also drive the climate, but there are reasons to be skeptical of the industry as a whole; we’ve seen a lot of hype around quantum computing startups, but progress in the field is still mostly stuck in the lab today.

However, IQM expects its quantum computers to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the next three to five years, especially “for some early use cases. The company said it is already “working with a leading automaker to develop new approaches to better battery solutions” and plans to use its new funding for further research in battery technology, quantum chemistry and other areas.

The idea of applying quantum technology to climate change mitigation is apparently not so far-fetched. Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich has said he “[believes] quantum computing can help solve the problem of climate change, particularly the challenge of carbon capture (sequestration).” Microsoft’s research includes uncovering how quantum computing can discover “more efficient” ways to convert carbon dioxide into other compounds.

The World Fund and other investors in IQM are also backing the idea implicitly through their checkbooks. In a statement, the German venture capital firm said it would back only technologies that have the potential to remove “100 million tons” (or 100 megatons) of carbon from the atmosphere each year by 2040. Other investors in the latest round include the European Union’s European Innovation Council and Tencent. A person familiar with the matter identified the deal as bringing IQM’s post-investment valuation close to the $1 billion mark.

Some quantum computing companies have faced accusations of exaggerating their results. Maryland-based IonQ has been talking up its progress in quantum computing, but activist investor Scorpion Capital recently accused the company of fraud, calling its technology a “useless toy that doesn’t even add up to 1+1.” IonQ’s founders pushed back against the allegations, saying they were “amused by the extreme ignorance behind such attacks. In a related area, former staffers at British quantum crypto company Arqit reportedly questioned the usefulness and maturity of its quantum technology.

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